I suppose the most famous animal weather forecaster must be Punxsutawney Phil from Pennsylvania. He's a groundhog who's even has a day named after him.

The story goes that if the sun casts his shadow on Candlemas Day there is at least one more cold snap to come before the winter is over.

In fact the prediction is taken from an old Scottish saying: If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there'll be two winters in the year."

Or there's the English version: If Candlemas be fine and bright, Winter has another fight. If Candlemas brings cloud and rain, Winter will not come again.

Now a great deal of the weather folklore of this country is connected with the way that animals appear to foretell the future. In some respects I am sure that this is true. Now that we humans work outoors less and less, I think we have lost a lot of that knowledge or instinct about weather.

Even at the beginning of the 20th century, a large proportion of the population worked on the land. Many of them knew the weather signs, even if it were just for the sake of their own comfort.

But now where most of us live and work in very controlled environments the art of weather forecasting is rapidly being lost. So maybe the animals, especially the wild ones, have retained that instinctive understanding.

Birds seem to have a sixth sense, especially the ones that migrate south in the late autumn and return in the spring. They do this because changes in the weather trigger their instincts to take certain actions.

So what, I wonder, will happen when global warming starts to take effect? Will they stop migrating, or just travel much shorter distances south? And will they lose their ability to forecast our weather changes? If they stay here over the winter, they could end up competing for resources with the birds that never migrated.

A lot of the forecasts which we country folk believe the animals and insects can foretell, is to do with rain. Swifts and swallows fly lower in bad weather. This is mainly because the insects are lower down. And you seldom see a sea gull out to sea when it's raining.

Cows are said to know when it will rain. The old addage that if cows lie down, it is going to rain, or if they are standing, it's going to be fine, doesn't really work out in practice.

I used to ask a farmer friend, who swore by the saying, what happened if half were standing, and half were lying down. He turned to me and said one word: "Showery"!

Other recognized forecasters are bees; who stay close to their hives when rain threatens, and spiders, who abandon their webs before the rain comes.

Maybe there is something we can learn about short range forecasting from observing animals. But I would much prefer to look at the BBC Weather forecasts.

Related Links:

- Migration
- Hibernation